Tweet
My Mario Kart World Character Ranking
I decided to do a fun little thing and rank ALL 50 playable racers in the game to my liking. I will go over each and every character, describing what I like and don’t like about them in detail, going in reverse from 50 to 1.
I have provided 2 TierMaker screenshots of ranking positions so you can see for yourself at a glance how they stack up to each other. Note that I will NOT be covering the alternate costume outfits for the main characters, but I could potentially perhaps make a separate ranking article for them later on if I feel like it. If you’d like, feel free to use my template to make your own character ranking! As per usual, TierMaker lacks the proper Mario-related tier list template I would prefer from the public, so I set out to make my own, with images sourced from the Super Mario Wiki. This ranking I made is of course subjective and my own personal opinion, so don’t consider it as me shouting it to be definitive.
This ranking is based on my personal preferences and biases with regards to Mario characters, how they’re designed, how they’re animated in-game, and their relative history to the series. I may also factor in the amount and quality of outfits for a given character if they have access to them.
Overall, I am actually quite pleased with the base roster of World. Originally, I was being a doomer about the roster, since I know the Mario Kart EPD team all too well with their penchant for making ridiculous picks (Honey Queen, Pink Gold Peach, etc.) and ignoring fan requests for more substantial picks from subseries like WarioWare or the Mario RPGs ever since Mario Kart 7 dropped, although the ridiculous picks have been a thing since Mario Kart DS with R.O.B. (Who I adore dearly and wish would return, not as a bike). So I was originally vouching for “Nintendo Kart”, or Smash Kart as some would say, with Nintendo guest characters making up the bulk of the roster not unlike Sonic does with his All-Star racing games. If they wouldn’t deign to expand the Mario mythos, perhaps it could go in a more broader direction outside of Mario-related stipulations and mandates, or just ignorance on behalf of Kosuke Yabuki’s team.
This possible concept angered a good majority of the Mario fandom online, and I wasn’t sure why, until now. I realize now that “Nintendo Kart” would dilute the purity of the Mario Kart brand as a Mario game first and foremost, and invite the ne’er-do-wells of the Smash community with their rampant speculation and proclivity for third-party requests ever since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Although I was initially surprised and skeptical about the bevy of mooks introduced in this entry, I have gradually warmed up to them. That isn’t to say I accept all of them; I still would have preferred more superstar-charged picks from the wider Marioverse like the DK characters, Mario RPG characters and even WarioWare (Mario Kart Arcade GP had Diamond City as a track, and Mario Kart Wii had Wario’s bike from WarioWare, so ‘Ware isn’t out of the question).
But with the combination of the wonderful 200+ soundtrack calling back to old Mario tune favorites, and the large Free Roam open world replete with side activities and vistas/graphic designs to gawk at, it has made me appreciate the majority of mooks on the roster, and has made me proud to be a Mario fan (A Mario Monk in this case). The mooks ARE Mario characters, after all, even if they make you question how they can operate a vehicle without proper limbs and hands on some of them. That being said, I still rate certain mook/NPC drivers very low, as not all of them have what it takes, in my eyes, to have superstar energy. Some of them are pretty bad in terms of presentation, logic and reasoning. But on the whole, I consider World’s roster a treat to indulge in, despite my obvious favorites. I have cycled through pretty much all of them on a regular playthrough on all the modes, taking in all their new vastly improved Switch 2 era models and animations, some of which are so good that they bumped up my previous rankings of previous characters up a notch, since they are so much better than their GameCube era model counterparts that have been rehashed to hell and back for decades (Mario, Toad, Birdo, Lakitu, King Boo and Bowser Jr. being standout examples of this improvement).
I’d go so far as to say that, with the exception of the Booster Course Pass characters, World clears 8 Deluxe in terms of character variety, as it demoted the controversial Koopalings into stickers and signage, and there are no metal clones or Nintendo characters, of whom I only slightly prefer Link, but the rest: No thanks… There is still DLC in the future to consider for more characters, but for now we make do with what we have, and 50 is plenty. I can also whip up a wishlist of Mario Kart World DLC characters later on as well.
So, without further ado, here is my ranking for the base Mario Kart World characters:
I have provided 2 TierMaker screenshots of ranking positions so you can see for yourself at a glance how they stack up to each other. Note that I will NOT be covering the alternate costume outfits for the main characters, but I could potentially perhaps make a separate ranking article for them later on if I feel like it. If you’d like, feel free to use my template to make your own character ranking! As per usual, TierMaker lacks the proper Mario-related tier list template I would prefer from the public, so I set out to make my own, with images sourced from the Super Mario Wiki. This ranking I made is of course subjective and my own personal opinion, so don’t consider it as me shouting it to be definitive.
This ranking is based on my personal preferences and biases with regards to Mario characters, how they’re designed, how they’re animated in-game, and their relative history to the series. I may also factor in the amount and quality of outfits for a given character if they have access to them.
Overall, I am actually quite pleased with the base roster of World. Originally, I was being a doomer about the roster, since I know the Mario Kart EPD team all too well with their penchant for making ridiculous picks (Honey Queen, Pink Gold Peach, etc.) and ignoring fan requests for more substantial picks from subseries like WarioWare or the Mario RPGs ever since Mario Kart 7 dropped, although the ridiculous picks have been a thing since Mario Kart DS with R.O.B. (Who I adore dearly and wish would return, not as a bike). So I was originally vouching for “Nintendo Kart”, or Smash Kart as some would say, with Nintendo guest characters making up the bulk of the roster not unlike Sonic does with his All-Star racing games. If they wouldn’t deign to expand the Mario mythos, perhaps it could go in a more broader direction outside of Mario-related stipulations and mandates, or just ignorance on behalf of Kosuke Yabuki’s team.
This possible concept angered a good majority of the Mario fandom online, and I wasn’t sure why, until now. I realize now that “Nintendo Kart” would dilute the purity of the Mario Kart brand as a Mario game first and foremost, and invite the ne’er-do-wells of the Smash community with their rampant speculation and proclivity for third-party requests ever since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Although I was initially surprised and skeptical about the bevy of mooks introduced in this entry, I have gradually warmed up to them. That isn’t to say I accept all of them; I still would have preferred more superstar-charged picks from the wider Marioverse like the DK characters, Mario RPG characters and even WarioWare (Mario Kart Arcade GP had Diamond City as a track, and Mario Kart Wii had Wario’s bike from WarioWare, so ‘Ware isn’t out of the question).
But with the combination of the wonderful 200+ soundtrack calling back to old Mario tune favorites, and the large Free Roam open world replete with side activities and vistas/graphic designs to gawk at, it has made me appreciate the majority of mooks on the roster, and has made me proud to be a Mario fan (A Mario Monk in this case). The mooks ARE Mario characters, after all, even if they make you question how they can operate a vehicle without proper limbs and hands on some of them. That being said, I still rate certain mook/NPC drivers very low, as not all of them have what it takes, in my eyes, to have superstar energy. Some of them are pretty bad in terms of presentation, logic and reasoning. But on the whole, I consider World’s roster a treat to indulge in, despite my obvious favorites. I have cycled through pretty much all of them on a regular playthrough on all the modes, taking in all their new vastly improved Switch 2 era models and animations, some of which are so good that they bumped up my previous rankings of previous characters up a notch, since they are so much better than their GameCube era model counterparts that have been rehashed to hell and back for decades (Mario, Toad, Birdo, Lakitu, King Boo and Bowser Jr. being standout examples of this improvement).
I’d go so far as to say that, with the exception of the Booster Course Pass characters, World clears 8 Deluxe in terms of character variety, as it demoted the controversial Koopalings into stickers and signage, and there are no metal clones or Nintendo characters, of whom I only slightly prefer Link, but the rest: No thanks… There is still DLC in the future to consider for more characters, but for now we make do with what we have, and 50 is plenty. I can also whip up a wishlist of Mario Kart World DLC characters later on as well.
So, without further ado, here is my ranking for the base Mario Kart World characters: